Andrew Wheeler

Created by Dan Jurgens in his self-titled series in 1986, Booster Gold is one of the most quintessentially 80s superheroes, dressed in garish gold, and obsessed with his own image and celebrity. He came from the future, but he belongs to the MTV generation. And as a time-traveler himself, he has a typically convoluted backstory involving a dead sister, alternate versions of himself, and the usual confusion of crises.

That backstory is only going to get more complicated when Booster Gold is thrown into the mix of DC's Convergence event. Thankfully DC has decided to help readers out with a two-page guide to Booster's backstory, which they've asked us to share exclusively with you.

The return of the Joker and his latest rein of crazy over Gotham comes to an end in April with the concluding chapter of Endgame in Scott Snyder and Greg Capullo's Batman #40. The effects of the Joker's assault on sanity won't only be felt in the pages of that book, but in a series of one-shots spinning out of Batgirl, Arkham Manor, Detective Comics, and Gotham Academy.

In the case of Gotham's finest/spookiest/strangest private school, the endgame plays out on the dark and sinister night of a city-wide blackout, with Joker-infected crazies at large on the streets. Holed up at the academy, students Olive Silverlock, Maps Mizoguchi and their... "friends"... tell each other scary Joker stories --- and those stories come from a team of exceptional guest artists. Series writers Brenden Fletcher and Becky Cloonan are joined by Six Gun Gorilla artist Jeff Stokely, Adventure Time character designer Joy Ang, illustrator Clio Chiang, and Anya's Ghost author Vera Brosgol. Check out our exclusive preview... if you dare.

Whatever the Marvel Universe looks like after Secret Wars, we now have confirmation that Miles Morales is a part of it. The final members of Marvel's post-Secret Wars Avengers roster were revealed this morning, and as just about everyone had guessed, the figure front and center is Miles Morales, the Ultimate Spider-Man. He joins a team that also includes Iron Man, Vision, Captain America (Sam Wilson), Thor (current version), Nova (Sam Alexander), and Ms Marvel. All of which most people had also already guessed.

The creative team for the Free Comic Book Day comic that introduces this team has been revealed as Mark Waid, Mahmud Asrar and Laura Martin; presumably they'll also be the creative team on the title proper.

Welcome back to the ComicsAlliance post-show analysis for Agents of SHIELD, the spy show set in the Marvel Cinematic Universe. This is where we break down each episode using our unique S.H.L.E.I.D. recap system — recapping the show, looking at highlights and lowlights, and exploring the show’s relationship to both the comics and the wider Marvel movie world.

This week, Lance meets the more transparent, more secret NuSHIELD; Ward and 33 have some supervillain hijinx; and Coulson sends Skye to go live on a farm. ‘Love In The Time of HYDRA’ was directed by Jesse Bochco and written by Brent Fletcher.

Some gloriously wacky ideas have come out of Marvel's plans for Secret Wars, from an Arkon series set in a fantasy world to a dinosaur vs biplanes story, but one of the ideas we're most excited about --- especially since we saw the preview pages --- is Ghost Racers, Felipe Smith and Juan Gedeon's tale of various Ghost Riders competing on a hellish racetrack for a chance to save their souls.

To add to our excitement, Marvel has given us an exclusive look at Gedeon's designs for the riders and their rides, including Carter Slade's centaur mode, Johnny Blaze's stuntman costume, and an electrified Zero Cochrane, aka Ghost Rider 2099. The sketches also include a new version of Zadkiel, the archangel charged with overseeing the Spirits of Vengeance that power the Ghost Riders.

All-New All-Different Avengers is one of two Marvel Free Comic Book Day titles, alongside Secret Wars #0, and while the latter sets the stage for Marvel's multiversal summer event, the former is our first look at what the new Marvel Universe will look like after Secret Wars --- so of course, Marvel is only telling us so much. The publisher has now revealed a cover for the Free Comic Book Day All-New All-Different Avengers comic, but most of the cover remains in silhouette.

Still, that won't stop us from wildly speculating (and maybe even making some informed guesses).

The adventure series Rat Queens from Kurtis J. Wiebe and Roc Upchurch took home the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Comic Book at a ceremony in Los Angeles on Saturday. The medieval fantasy series centers on a diverse cast of female adventurers, including lesbian halfling thief Betty.

This year's other nominees were Hawkeye, by Matt Fraction, David Aja, Annie Wu, and Matt Hollingsworth; Lumberjanes, by Noelle Stevenson, Grace Ellis, and Brooke Allen; Memetic, by James Tynion IV and Eryk Donovan; and Saga, by Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples.

For a long time it seemed like the Deadpool movie could never happen. The character's first appearance in X-Men Origins: Wolverine completely mis-read Deadpool's appeal despite the seemingly perfect casing of Ryan Reynolds. When Reynolds made his DC with the Green Lantern movie for Warner Bros., it seemed unlikely that Deadpool would ever get back in track.

The canny decision to leak some test footage back in July of last year for a Deadpool movie treatment that relies heavily on CGI to embrace the character's Looney Tunes cartoonishness caused enough of a stir that Deadpool was suddenly alive again, with Reynolds still attached to star. Now we have evidence from the cast that the movie has entered into production, which means it is really, actually happening.

We've already seen Arrow and The Flash cross paths a few times on their respective TV shows; now they'll meet up again in the tie-in next week's installment of the DC Digital comic series The Flash: Season Zero, from writers Lauren Certo, Andrew Kreisberg, and Kai Wu, and artists Phil Hester, Eric Gapstur, and Kelsey Shannon.

This is not Hester's first time drawing a version of Ollie Queen, aka Arrow on the screen and Green Arrow in the DC comics universe. Hester and Ande Parks were the celebrated art team on Kevin Smith's Green Arrow run of the early 2000s. We spoke to Hester to learn what it was like to take on such a different take on such a familiar character, and DC provided us with an exclusive preview of the creative team's Arrow leaping into action.

One of the great joys of role-playing games is that it actually is about how you play the game, and not about winning. Winning is nice, of course, but in some games it's barely even an option. You have to play role-playing games because you enjoy the journey.

But there are those bratty players who only want to win, and who tend to make the journey considerably less pleasant for everyone else. Those players are the munchkins, the inspiration behind Steve Jackson and Jon Kovalic's hugely popular role-play-inspired card game of the same name, and now the spin-off comic book series from Boom Studios' Boom Box imprint. Boom was kind enough to send us a preview of next week's issue #3.

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